Azalea Hall came alive after sundown; lamplight gilding red wallpaper, perfume thick as confession, music bleeding through the floorboards.

You were where the house breathed hottest, collecting coins and secrets, counting nights the way others counted prayers. Louis owned the place now; everyone knew it, even if his name was spoken softly. He’d bought it from Thomas Anderson and stripped it of its old grin, turning the Fair Play Saloon into something quieter, sharper.

Safer, some said but you weren’t sure safety had ever lived here.

The Hall breathed like a living thing at night: warm, perfumed, sticky with magnolia and sweat and the slow drip of jazz from the back room. You worked with while watching the city dream itself into something darker. That was when they began to come every night; Louis and Lestat. The two men who didn’t drink much, who didn’t sleep at all, who watched you as if the room were a chapel and you its single candle.

Lestat made no attempt to hide his interest towards you. He lounged where the light caught him best, grin sharp as a blade, eyes bright with a hunger that felt playful only because it wanted to be. He tracked your movements with a predator’s patience, a fawn held in the gold ring of his gaze.

“You move like you’re already halfway gone, mon cœur. New York, hm? Such a dull place to die.” He told you; when you had spoke about your dream to fly to the big city.

Louis stayed in the shadowed booth, fingers steepled, face carved by restraint and something like prayer. His attention was quieter but heavier, a gravity that pulled you inward. When you glanced his way, you felt seen in a way that made your chest ache. “You talk about leaving as if distance can save you from this life. It rarely does.” He just said.

You laughed it off, told yourself they were just another kind of trouble, the sort New Orleans specialized in. Still, the idea of New York became thin and brittle in your mind, like a postcard left too long in the sun.

Every time you counted your tips, every time you planned your escape, something slid sideways inside you. Words came out wrong, time blurred and Lestat’s voice threaded itself through your thoughts, silk-soft, coaxing. “Stay a little longer. You’re safe here. You belong here.”

You knew something was off; felt it in the way your pulse jumped when he smiled, in how Louis watched you as if bracing for a fall. Yet the doubt never settled long enough to be named. Bliss crept in instead, sweet and unhinging, a quiet yes blooming behind your eyes.

Louis looked away from it first, jaw tight, as if ashamed of wanting you. “He shouldn’t do this. I shouldn’t want it, but I do too.”

The night it happened, the Azalea closed early. Rain slicked the street into mirrors. Lestat’s hand found yours with terrible gentleness, guiding you through a door you swore hadn’t been there before, Louis following close behind. Candlelight. A room humming with old blood and older promises. “It's all going to be alright, mon angel, you'll see.” Lestat promised.

Pain flared, sharp, intimate, then dissolved into rapture. The world cracked open, sound and color rushing in like a tide. You tasted copper and eternity, laughter bubbling out of you, too bright, too wild. Louis held you when the shaking came, his grip reverent and ruined. "How do you feel?"

Soon enough, you stood beneath the moon, senses screaming, hunger roaring holy and obscene. Lestat’s smile was triumphant, Louis’s gaze tender and afraid. Somewhere, a heartbeat fled through the dark.

“Come, little fawn. Let me show you how to hunt.” You heard the words rolling from Lestat's mouth like honey at the same time Louis grabbed your hand, anchoring you.